Slide
by Minerva Solo
Summary: Based on yet another Dido song ^_^ Nagi received a drunken phonecall from a once proud man, sunk by guilt, and is disgusted at teh state his former boss is in.


Slide 

A/N: Hmm, maybe I should just go through and do the whole album? This is the third Dido songfic, and I'm planning to do one based on 'Hunter' as well. Oh, and 'My life' and 'Take my hand'. Anyway, here's another post series Schwarz. There's a distinct possibility this actually happens at the same time as 'Honestly OK' and Schuldig's just been separated from the rest of Schwarz.

Disclaimers; The song belongs to Dido and the characters to the owner of Weiss Kreuz. Both groups are making lots of money, which I'm not.

Warnings: angst, NagiBrad with references to other pairings, some sap, I guess. 

_Even on a day like this when you're crawling on the floor_

_Reaching for the phone to ring anyone who knows you anymore_

Nagi sat in the doorway of the small room and stared at the semi-conscious older man. There was a mostly empty bottle of scotch lying next to him with the lid off but the floor was dry. Crawford had drunk it all last night. Well, 'night' was a bit misleading, seeing as he'd started somewhere around breakfast. 

Nagi's mobile phone had rung last night, next to his bed in the dormitory. Boarding school had seemed like such a good idea when he thought himself alone in the world, but as the rest of Schwarz had revealed themselves as being alive he had begun to regret his decision to cut himself off from the world. Well, most of Schwarz.

Crawford prised his eyes apart, unseeing. The visions and the memories were tearing him out of the present, and Nagi could only guess what Crawford thought the date was.

_It's all right to make mistakes, you're only human_

Schuldig had drowned. Nagi had heard about the corpse that washed up on a public beach without shedding any tears, but guilt gnawed at him. He was a telekinetic. If he'd saved himself, might he not also have been able to save Schuldig? But Nagi was a pragmatic person and forced such thoughts away. If wishes were fishes Schuldig wouldn't have joined them.

_Inside everybody's hiding something_

Sometimes Nagi wondered: had Crawford foreseen it? Crawford had hinted in his drunken call that he'd known they would fail, but had tried to fight it. Had he also known that Schuldig would die? Had he realised that their futile attempt to take over the world would kill the man dearest to him?

Did he blame himself?

_Staring at the same four walls, have you tried to help yourself_

_The rings around your eyes they don't hide, that you need to get some rest_

Nagi use his power to haul Crawford onto his bed. Crawford sat up, rubbing his head. Nagi bit back a smile as he wondered wryly whether if Crawford had a vision of a hangover, did he suffer the effect before he got drunk? For a man who spent most of his time catatonic he seemed to have missed a lot of rest.

"Nagi? What are you doing here?" Crawford frowned at him. Tentatively he put a hand out.

"I'm here," Nagi reassured him. "You called me last night. You were drunk. Again." Nagi's disapproval made Crawford flinch, but he didn't try to defend himself. Nagi sighed and went to fetch some paracetamol.

_It's all right to make mistakes you're only human_

Crawford stared at the ceiling, burning with shame inside. A boy half his age waiting on him because he was incapable of looking after himself. He wanted to get up, he wanted to get dressed, he wanted to go out and try to remember what it was to live. A radio in the street below perkily informed of the day's date and he groaned aloud. Almost three months had passed, but he was still living in the day after.

He failed his team, he failed his dream and he'd failed the man he loved. The man who had never known he was loved.

_Inside everybody's hiding something_

He'd known they were going to die. He hadn't expected to survive. He hadn't wanted to. He taken Aya Fujimiya with the intention of getting himself and his team killed.

Murder.

_Take time to catch your breath and choose your moment_

_Don't slide_

Nagi stared at the tiny mirror on the bathroom cabinet. A young man looked back at him, weary and sad. A face that spoke of shattered dreams and broken hearts, a face that kept the dark thoughts in and the harsh world out. It was the countenance of a youth that has loved and lost, and it wasn't Tot he mourned. 

A once proud man was killing himself with liquor and spirits. He lay like a rag doll on the bed in the adjoining room, capable of nothing. Anger filled Nagi's normally expressionless eyes. How dare Crawford do this to him? How dare Crawford be so disappointing? Nagi had trusted Crawford to be strong, to be a leader, to be a man worth looking up to and loving, and Crawford had betrayed that trust.

_Even at a time like this when the morning seems so far_

_Think that pain belongs to you but it's happened to us all_

"Nagi?" Crawford accepted the water and pills from the teen gratefully. "How's… life?"

"Are you asking as someone who's forgotten?" Nagi asked sharply, his dark humour surprising Crawford into realising that yes, he was. "Some good, some bad. The way it is. Ever changing, ever moving on…"

"I get the point," Crawford snapped. "I'm not living in the past, Nagi, no matter what you think."

"Right, so getting drunk and passing out on a daily basis is part of some great master plan to what, die of liver failure?" Nagi snarled. "What happened to your drive?"

"It drove away," Crawford joked weakly. "I failed, Nagi. I had something I sought to accomplish and I didn't manage it."

"So? Find a new dream, or whatever. The rest of us did."

"Schuldig didn't."

_It's all right to make mistakes you're only human_

_Inside everybody's hiding something_

Nagi slapped him. "Schuldig's dead," he yelled into Crawford's face. "Forget him!"

"I killed him," Crawford pointed out slowly.

"You're a killer-" Nagi began, but Crawford hadn't finished.

"...I tried to kill you." Nagi's jaw dropped. "I tried to kill Farfarello. I tried to kill me. But I killed him. I wanted us to be together and I separated us permanently."

"Not the way you're going," Nagi observed. "Look, you screwed up royally, I'll admit. We'd have been better off avoiding the place altogether or letting the Elders reinstate the old empire. But you're not the only one. I should have been concentrating harder on holding the floor together. Farfarello should have killed Weiss rather than play with them. Schuldig should have known how to swim."

"He didn't know," Crawford protested.

"You did," Nagi pointed out smoothly. "The thing is, there's a lot of blame but no body to place it on. Or too many. Take your pick."

_Take time to catch your breath and choose your moment_

_Don't slide_

Nagi moved to sit next to Crawford, the side of his body pressed along the length of Crawford's. Nagi had grown and matured a lot recently. He took the glass from Crawford's trembling fingers and set it on the floor using his power. Crawford slumped back and stared at the ceiling, ready to start another round of self-recrimination.

"I'm not saying 'let go now'," Nagi began before he could, "but you do have to let go some day. I know how you felt about him. We all did, even him. He choose to ignore you in favour of that Weiss slut."

"I know."

"Idiot."

"What?!"

"Him. Schuldig. Idiot." Nagi rolled onto his side and hooked an arm around the older man. "He was a bastard, Crawford. He screwed with peoples' minds. He knew you wanted him so he set out to use that to hurt you. It wasn't even anything personal. I don't know why, but you never really saw that, even with your 'sight'. You were just another guy to him. That's why you have to let go, because there's nothing to hold on to anyway."

_You brought this on yourself and it's high time you left it there_

"I set myself up as a target," Crawford heard himself admitting. "I wasn't nearly as easy to manipulate as some but I actually _told_ him of my weakness."

"It wasn't anything personal," Nagi reiterated. "You were just a convenient plaything."

Crawford squinted at the young man. Even without his glasses he could see how much Nagi had grown up. Or had he? Nagi had always been mature inside, and part of Crawford had always known he was only waiting for Nagi's body to catch up. Schuldig was an infatuation, a fascination, an obsession. Nagi was just… there.

"If you know so much about it, how do I get out of this hole I've dug myself into?" Crawford asked him, not sure whether he was joking, serious or sarcastic. Nagi seemed equally confused.

"You have to help yourself," Nagi said uncertainly. "Just, I don't know, try and move on."

_Lie here and rest your head and dream of something else instead_

A trace of a once familiar smirk ghosted across Crawford's lips. "I rather hoped we could stay here," he teased lightly.

Nagi chuckled. "I can do that." He used his gift to pull the sheets over them both. Crawford yawned widely, months of emotional exhaustion behind him. A few nights of solid sleep, uninterrupted by dreams of the past or visions on the future, would do more for moving on than all the counselling advice Nagi could offer.

Nagi understood this and pulled the older man close, pressing Crawford's head to his shoulder, holding him close as Brad drifted into soft slumber.

_Don't slide._


End file.
